Kirkland Lake Gold (TSX:  KL; NYSE: KL; ASX: KLA) ended its final quarter before its combination with Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX: AEM; NYSE: AEM) on a high note – with record production of 380,470 oz. gold achieved across its three operations.

The gold miner also posted record production for the year, with a total of 1.4 million oz. Revised guidance released in November called for between 1.35 million and 1.4 million oz. of gold 2021. 

The positive results were driven by record production at Kirkland’s Lake’s Detour Lake gold mine in Ontario and strong performance at its Fosterville mine in Australia. Detour Lake churned out nearly 211,000 oz. gold (up 38% from the last quarter of 2020) as mining hit some of the highest-grade areas in the mine plan and production benefited from mill enhancements completed during the year. 

Fosterville contributed 108,160 oz. gold in the quarter; Although down from 2020 production, the operation outperformed against expectations. It delivered 509,600 oz. for the year on higher grades (processing 677,899 tonnes at an average grade of 23.7 g/t) compared to guidance of 400,000 to 425,000 oz. gold.

The company’s Macassa mine in Ontario delivered 210,190 oz. gold for the year and 61,340 oz. for the quarter, up 17% from the same period of 2020. Production guidance for the mine was revised downward to 190,000 to 210,000 oz. in November, down from 220,000 to 255,000 oz. 

Macassa to fall short

Kirkland Lake president and CEO Tony Makuch, who will also head the combined company post-merger, noted that Detour Lake and Fosterville are both positioned to meet the three-year production guidance issued in December 2020. However, Macassa production is expected to fall short. 

“At Macassa, we are reviewing the operation to assess opportunities to incorporate Agnico Eagle’s Amalgamated Kirkland zone into the mine plan, to address ongoing performance and supply chain issues related to batteries and our battery-powered haul fleet, and to evaluate future plans for the near-surface ramp and mineralized zones,” Makuch said in a release. “Based on work to date, we expect a reduction in production in 2022 from levels included in our previously issued three-year guidance.” 

Three-year guidance figures released at the end of 2020 projected total production of 1.3 to 1.45 million oz. across all three operations in 2022, increasing to 1.4 to 1.55 million oz. in 2023. Updated guidance numbers, along with consolidated budget, will be released in late February, after the merger with Agnico closes (expected in late January to mid-February). 

Makuch also noted that the company is dealing with a reduced workforce at all its operations due to Covid-19 as the Omicron variant continues to spread quickly. (An Omicron-fuelled outbreak prompted Agnico Eagle to ramp down operations at its Nunavut mines in December.) However, he said it is too soon to know if the disruption will have any effect on production.

The company completed sinking the #4 Shaft at Macassa this month to a depth of 1,950 metres (6,400 ft.). Additional work, including construction of the loading pocket and other infrastructure development, and connection of the shaft to current operations, is on track to be completed by the end of the year. 

Kirkland Lake had success expanding resources at Detour Lake and with exploration at Fosterville last year. 

For more information, visit www.klgold.com.

BHP (ASX, LON, NYSE: BHP) is buying four battery electric trains to transport iron ore from its mines to ports in Western Australia, following in the footsteps of its main local rivals Rio Tinto (ASX, LON, NYSE: RIO) and Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG) .

The world’s biggest listed miner said the locomotives, scheduled for delivery in late 2023, will be supplied by US-based Progress Rail, a unit of Caterpillar, and rail technology firm Wabtec Corp.

BHP will test the battery-electric locomotives’ performance and emissions reduction capabilities in delivering iron-ore from its Pilbara mines to the Port Hedland export facility.

The deal will help the miner achieve its goal of net zero emissions by 2050 for its customers, including the heavily polluting steel industry. The industry is responsible for as much as 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions and about three quarters of BHP’s scope 3 emissions. 

BHP will also test unique “energy recapture” opportunities using the rail network’s natural topography to further reduce the trains’ overall power demand.

On the way to port, locomotives can capture energy that would otherwise be lost from braking on downhill slopes. They can then use that energy to help power empty trains back to the Pilbara.

A fully-laden BHP WA Iron Ore train typically comprises four diesel-electric locomotives pulling approximately 270 cars carrying a total of 38,000 tonnes of iron ore, BHP noted.

“Replacing diesel-powered vehicles with electric technology is a key part of our plans to reduce operational emissions, as is partnering with a broad range of global equipment manufacturers and technology providers,” BHP group procurement officer James Agar, said in the statement

“Rail is the fundamental link in our pit-to-port value chain, and the power required to deliver fully-laden iron ore wagons from the Pilbara to Port Hedland is significant,” BHP Asset President Western Australia Iron Ore, Brandon Craig, added.

A full transition to battery-electric locomotives would reduce the company’s iron ore diesel-related carbon emissions in Western Australia by nearly 30% annually, it added.

Today’s announcement follows recent BHP partnerships with Caterpillar and Komatsu to develop zero emissions haul trucks, and separate agreements for renewable energy supply contracts at its Escondida, Queensland coal mines, Nickel West and Olympic Dam operations as well as a solar farm at Nickel West.

Hexagon AB, a global leader in digital reality solutions, announced the acquisition of Minnovare, a leading provider of drilling technology that improves the speed, cost and accuracy of underground drilling on Jan. 10.

Minnovare specializes in eliminating the manual, labour intensive, and unproductive processes in underground mining that lead to blasthole deviation, dilution and downtime. Its advanced hardware and data-capture software combine to deliver drilling data faster and more accurately than ever before, thus improving the efficiency, productivity and overall profitability of underground drilling operations.

Its solution combines sensors, software and data analytics to address deficiencies in existing drilling processes across the resource definition, development and production phases.

Founded in Perth, Western Australia in 2012, Minnovare has established a proven track record, with more than 150 contracted systems in over 90 mining operations worldwide. Minnovare will operate as part of Hexagon’s mining division.

The acquisition closed earlier this year.

Visit www.Hexagon.com and www.Minnovare.com.

he electric vehicle (EV) industry will dominate demand for lithium in the coming years, Chilean copper agency Cochilco said this week, accounting for almost three quarters of the battery metal’s consumption by 2030, up from 41% in 2020.

According to the industry body, lithium hydroxide will take the leading role, reaching 56% of the total consumption versus 44% for carbonate by the end of the decade. This switch can be mainly explained by manufacturers’ growing preference for nickel-intensive cathodes, which tend to favour the use of hydroxide over carbonate, Cochilco said. 

Demand associated with cell phones, computers and tablets and other consumer goods would reach 411,000 tonnes in 2030, compared with the 79,000 tonnes expected for this year, the body estimated.

Chile, already the world’s top copper producer, is trying to regain some of the market lost to Australia in 2018. Lat year, it produced about 18,000 tonnes of lithium, far behind the nearly 40,000 tonnes generated in Australia.

Both copper and lithium are among the most coveted commodities as they are both used in EVs and infrastructure to support other green technologies.

Touchy subject

The outgoing government of President Sebastián Piñera had invited bids in October from private companies to expand lithium production to 400,000 tonnes a year. The plan, however, has triggered a debate among Chileans, who are at odds over the social and environmental risks of lithium extraction.

Lawmakers from the center-left opposition party PPD filed on Tuesday an objection before an appeals court in the capital, Santiago, to halt the bidding process. And on Wednesday, the centrist Christian Democrats introduced a bill in the Chilean legislature to prevent sitting presidents from inviting new mining-contract bids in the final 90 days of a term.

Piñera, 72, will hand over power in March to 35-year-old left-winger Gabriel Boric, whose team accuses the outgoing administration of trying to rush through the new contracts at a time when the country is reassessing its stance on natural resources in a process to draft a new constitution. 

How to handle lithium production is likely to be one of the toughest issues Boric will face. The 35-year-old former law student, vowed during his campaign to bury Chile’s “neo liberal” economic model and kick off an ambitious climate action plan.

Although he later softened his message, Boric has kept the idea of giving the State a more active role in the sector, imposing higher royalties and creating a national lithium company. 

With prices soaring on the global market, lithium mining could become a key source of income for his government, even as it could impact the ecology of the Atacama salt flat, where area the world’s two largest lithium producer, Albemarle (NYSE: ALB) and SQM (NYSE: SQM), have operations.

This article originally appeared on www.Mining.com.

Mining Intelligence data shows that Canada hosts several of the top mines by ore value

In mining, grade is king. Across the commodity spectrum, some of the most anticipated results – which can determine the scope of a mining project – are assay values from drill testing.

As one of mining’s most influential figures, Robert Friedland, sums it up:

“Mining 101. High grade is good. Low grade is bad.

“The higher the grade, the smaller the environmental footprint,” Friedland has said. “The higher the grade, the smaller the plant, the less the electrical consumption, the smaller the labour force, the smaller the tailings pond, the less the global warming gas per unit of metal produced.”

The value of the ore is calculated by multiplying the contained metals and minerals per tonne in the proven and probable reserves by the ruling price for the commodities.

While this isn’t a measure of profitability since it does not take costs of development or operation into account or the overall size of the mine, it does offer insight into the geographical locations that host rich ore and commodities of interest.

Silver and gold shine on the top ten list of mines with the most valuable ore, compiled with data provided by our sister company Mining Intelligence.

Top listed uranium producer Cameco’s Cigar Lake uranium mine in Saskatchewan takes top spot with ore reserves valued at US$9,105 per tonne, totalling US$4.3 billion. After a six-month pandemic induced halt, Cameco restarted operations at Cigar Lake in April.

Pan American Silver’s Cap-Oeste Sur Este (COSE) mine in Argentina is in second place, with ore reserves valued at US$1,606 per tonne, totaling US$60 million.

In third place is Alphamin Resources’ Bisie tin mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which saw record production in the final quarter of 2020, with ore reserves valued at US$1,560 per tonne, totalling US$5.2 billion. Fourth place goes to Alexco Resource’s Bellekeno silver mine in Canada’s Yukon territory, one of four deposits that make up its Keno Hill operation. Reserves at Bellekeno are valued at US$1,314 per tonne for a total value of US$20 million.

Kirkland Lake Gold, which recently announced it will merge with Agnico Eagle Mines, takes two spots in the top ten list, with its Macassa gold mine in Ontario and Fosterville gold mine in Australia at fifth and sixth places, respectively. Macassa has ore reserves valued at US$1,121 per tonne for a total value of US$4.3 billion while Fosterville’s reserves are valued at US$915 per tonne for a total of US$5.5 billion.

In seventh place is Glencore’s Shaimerden zinc mine in Kazakhstan, with ore reserves valued at US$874.7 million for a total value of US$1.1 billion. Alexco Resource takes another spot with its Flame and Moth silver deposit at Keno Hill with reserves valued at US$846.9 per tonne, for a total value of US$610 million.

Rounding out the top ten are Hecla Mining’s Greens Creek
silver-zinc mine in Alaska with ore reserves valued at US$844 per tonne for a total value of US$6.9 billion. Western Areas Spotted Quoll nickel mine in Australia with ore reserves valued at US$821 per tonne – a total value of US$1.3 billion. 

Novo Resources (TSX: NVO, OTC: NSRPF) has begun the second phase of testing the Steinert KSS 100F LIXT ore sorter at its Nullagine gold property in Western Australia. Samples from Comet Well and Purdy’s Reward have been processed with results pending.

The sorter was manufactured in Germany and is capable of testing material from all of Nova’s coarse ore projects in the Pilbara. The unit is fully modular and containerized. It includes feed and product transfer conveyors, making the production of gold-bearing concentrates possible in a single pass.

The tests are to be completed before May 2022, at which time the Steinert sorter will be moved to Comet Well and a 20,000-tonne bulk sample will be treated (phase three).

The Nullagine project is located near the small town of the same name. The indicated resource (using 0.5 g/t cut-off) for an open pit is 6.6 million tonnes grading 2.1 g/t gold for 457,000 contained oz. The inferred portion (using 0.5 g/t for open pit ore and 3.5 g/t for underground ore) is 4.3 million tonnes grading 3.2 g/t gold for 446,000 contained oz. of gold. Nova has yet to publish a preliminary economic assessment for the project.

A drone fly-over video of the installed sorter facility at the Nullagine gold project is available here .

Australia’s largest gold producer, Newcrest Mining (ASX: NCM), is moving to increase its stake in the Havieron gold-copper project that is developing with Greatland Gold (AIM:GGP) in the Paterson region of Western Australia.

The gold giant, who is the JV manager, has already earned 70% of the project via a farm-in agreement and has an option to acquire an additional 5% from Greatland at a price to be agreed.

The two companies said the option exercise price is expected to be set in mid-February 2022.

The proceeds will first be used to repay the outstanding balance under the Newcrest loan facility, Greatland said in the statement.

The recent Havieron prefeasibility study returned capital costs of A$529 million for a 2 million tonne per annum operation to produce 160,000 ounces of gold and 6,900 tonnes of copper at AISC of $990/oz over nine years. Processing will take place through Newcrest’s nearby Telfer copper-gold mine’s mill.

Newcrest also has the conditional right to an additional 10% joint venture stake, which would bring its participation up to 70%. The gold giant would have a 75% stake if both options are exercised.

The Melbourne-based company has been aggressively searching for juniors with appealing assets to jointly develop.

In 2019, it acquired a 70% stake in Canada’s Red Chris copper and gold mine from Imperial Metals (TSX: III).

Last month, it bought all outstanding common shares of Pretium Resources (TSX: PVG, NYSE: PVG) it does not already own in a deal that valued the Canadian miner at $2.8 billion.

The Paterson region hosts several large gold and/or copper deposits such as Nifty, Winu and Newcrest’s own Telfer.

RPM Global (RPM) has made another software acquisition by entering a research partnership with Canadian based MIRARCO. The agreement gives RPM ownership of three mine planning optimization software products that will strengthen RPM’s design and scheduling product suites and particularly strengthen the Schedule Optimization Tool product.

The acquisition is part of a three-year collaborative research partnership with MIRARCO, a research arm of Laurentian University. The organization was instrumental in the original research leading to the development of RPM’s Schedule Optimisation Tool. SOT, along with Attain and Surface SOT, were products acquired by RPM as part of its July 2020 acquisition of Revolution Mining Software. 

MIRARCO has developed three separate but complementary underground mine planning optimization products, which RPM has under this agreement agreed to acquire and commercialize. These products extend and complement the functionality of RPM’s mine optimization software solutions in the areas of advanced valuation, geosequencing and ventilation. 

As part of the collaboration arrangement, RPM and MIRARCO will continue to work together on research and development projects that deliver demonstrable and innovative solutions for the mining industry. 

The Advanced Valuation Module (AVM) facilitates the generation of optimized underground mine plans that are robust to uncertain product prices and ore grades. The mine planner specifies distributions for product prices over the mine’s life and ore grades. AVM will then optimize the life-of-mine schedule, maximizing the operation’s net present value (NPV). 

The GeoSequencing Module (GSM) facilitates the generation of optimized underground mine schedules adhering to stope sequencing constraints that are motivated by geotechnical considerations. The mine planner selects the rules for stope sequencing and GSM automatically generates alternative sets of stope-to-stope dependencies, or GeoSequencing scenarios, while enforcing the selected rules. The output is an NPV optimized life-of-mine schedule based on the mine’s geotechnical considerations. 

The Ventilation Constraint Module (VCM) generates optimized underground mine schedules based on ventilation constraints. Through interaction with a ventilation solver, VCM automatically generates airflow-based constraints on the equipment for each ventilation district. Using these constraints, VCM generates optimized NPV life-of-mine schedules that are feasible from a ventilation perspective. 

The acquisition was completed on Dec. 17. 

Visit www.RPMGlobal.com for additional information.

EarthLabs (TSXV: SPOT; OTC: SPOFF) has agreed to sell its exploration consulting and technology division (also known as ExplorTech) to Australia’s ALS Ltd. (ASX: ALQ) for total cash proceeds of $24 million and the assumption of $6 million in liabilities.

Headquartered in Brisbane, ALS is the world’s largest provider of laboratory testing, inspection, certification and verification solutions, with more than 18,000 employees globally.

The ExplorTech division comprises the EarthLabs’ GoldSpot Discoveries consulting group alongside Ridgeline Exploration Services Inc. and Geotic Inc. Its sale would reduce the company’s R&D costs and G&A expenses by approximately 70% year over year, creating a leaner, autonomous product portfolio of tech driven mineral exploration and financial tools.

Upon closing, EarthLabs will have approximately $53.7 million in cash, securities and equity investment; royalties and royalty options on 21 projects (it is currently the largest royalty holder in Newfoundland); and a product portfolio that includes Resource Quantamental, CEO.CA and DigiGeoData.

EarthLabs background

EarthLabs, formerly known as GoldSpot Discoveries, was formed in 2016 as a first-of-its-kind quant shop and tech incubator using artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify patterns necessary to fingerprint geophysical, geochemical, lithological and structural traits that correlate to mineralization.

This concept birthed EarthLabs’ financial technology division anchored by Resource Quantamental (RQ), its flagship investment decision model, using algorithms to stake acreage, acquire projects and royalties, and invest in public vehicles to create a portfolio of assets with the greatest reward to risk ratio. The concept also led to the creation of the ExplorTech division, the first of its kind to deploy innovative, geological and geostatistical workflows, both data-driven and knowledge, to examine the entire value exploration chain with a brand-new perspective.

Throughout the years, the company’s consultancy has evolved into an exploration technology industry leader and grew with the acquisitions of Ridgeline Exploration and Geotic.

In October 2021, EarthLabs closed its acquisition of CEO.CA Technologies Ltd., and in February 2022, completed the acquisition of DigiGeoData Inc., reaffirming its core commitment to acquire licensable software products and build robust and recurring revenue streams.

The sale of the ExplorTech division brings the company back to its core strength of incubating technology companies and products – creating, acquiring, managing and monetizing market-leading technology businesses to stimulate upstream mining industry company successes of venture financing and ore discovery, EarthLabs stated.

“Today’s announcement solidifies our commitment to acquire, manage and monetize market-leading technology businesses,” commented Denis Laviolette, executive chairman and president. “We founded the company with the vision for a money ball approach to mining investing and with our recent acquisitions, we have a tremendous opportunity to deploy our model, with new tools and platforms we didn’t have before that will advance our offerings.

“The GoldSpot consultancy was originally formed to finance the development of in-house technologies, make discoveries, grow capital and acquire businesses. The sale of our ExplorTech consulting toolbox will accelerate the construction of our leaner, capital-light and more automatable product licensing portfolio with a significantly larger total addressable market.”

Lion One Metals (TSXV: LIO; OTC: LOMLF) has closed its previously announced bought deal financing to raise gross proceeds of approximately $13.4 million. A total of approximately 17.4 million units priced at $0.77 were offered, including 1.1 million units issued to Eight Capital and Canaccord Genuity as partial exercise of their over-allotment options.

Each unit consists of one common share of Lion One and one-half of a one common share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant can be exercised at a price of $1.05 for a period of 36 months following the closing date.

Net proceeds from the offering will be used to advance the Tuvatu gold project, the company’s flagship asset. Located on the island of Viti Levu in Fiji, Tuvatu is envisioned as a low-cost, high-grade underground gold mining operation with exploration upside. The project is fully permitted and is currently in the drilling stage to define and expand the known mineralization, with a view of upgrading the resource model.

The latest Tuvatu resource estimate (June 2014) showed an indicated resource of 1.1 million tonnes at 8.46 g/t gold for 299,500 oz. of gold and an inferred resource of 1.5 million tonnes at 9.70 g/t gold for 468,000 oz. of gold.

The area surrounding Tuvatu gold deposit and resource area is covered by a 3.85 km² special mining lease, with the broader project area covered by over 13,600 hectares of special prospecting licences covering the balance of the Navilawa caldera, an underexplored yet highly prospective 7 km diameter alkaline gold system.

For more information on the Tuvatu project, visit www.liononemetals.com.